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Chapter 2
The Adventures of the Beer Keg of Science![]
Ix Ship Yards, Niops IX
Niops Association, 2 March, 3155
“I’m sorry, son,” Brigadier Zeb Kindarps said calmly, “my aging ears must not have heard you properly. It almost sounds like you said the Independence class ships won’t fit in our cruiser out there.”
Ivan Zubok (yes, of those Zuboks), head of the Ix Shipyards, sighed. “That’s exactly what I said, sir. It’s not just a matter of length, though we’re scraping anyway. It’s a matter of mass.”
“The bays were designed to hold ten kilotons worth of ships. The plan was to send one Independence and one Saturn with them, let the Independence handle the landing duties.”
“Yes, sir, the bays can hold 10 kilotons,” Ivan agreed, “but remember we’re working with hyperspace physics on technology that’s been out of use in the Inner Sphere for almost seven hundred years. Syrinx may understand its oddities, but…”
“…us mere mortals tend to struggle a bit.” Kindarps grumbled. “OK, fine. What’s the bottom line?”
Ivan looked at his noteputer. “To sum up? No one ship can be more than 5000 tons. Maximum length of 80 meters, about the same for width. Smaller would be better. There is some good news, though.”
“Oh?” Zeb asked. “What’s that?”
“Those laser AMS units that ‘fell off a truck’? Yeah, we were able to fit those in place of the small lasers for point defense, and integrate them with the original ship systems and the added automation. Doesn’t do the power distribution any favors, but that was an issue when the Cruisers were brand new, too. Oh, and there’s good news on the, uh, physics packages, too.”
Kindarps perked up. “Oh? Do tell.”
“We’re not going to have a lot of them, and they need discreet testing somewhere not here, but we don’t just have Santa Ana grade warheads available. We’ll be able so ship out with a half-dozen ‘asset management’ warheads for…’nuclear mining charges for xenogeological research’? Seriously? That’s our cover story?”
“Yep,” Zeb smiled. “That’s the plan. Going to have the makings of quite the gunboat diplomat.”
“Have we considered naming it that?” Zubok asked.
“Hmm…that’s not bad, actually. I’ll put that in as a proposal. SO ,what’s your answer to our little conundrum?”
“Put out an RFP. There’s a couple ships that fit the bill in the age of the DropShuttle. Like the original DroST I, the Black Eagle…I don’t know if our industrial base can handle the engines, but we could at least try to use one of those spaceframes as a starting point. We're starting to get a handle on ship's engines again, so we may be able to build better ones than the Saturn or Independence use, or worse comes to worse import them if they're common enough.
“Get on it.”